Piracy Updates In Australia… A television fan responds.

As a fan and consumer of a range of television shows and music there are two topics I have become passionate about. The first one is piracy and the second one is copyright. I am also interested in how piracy and copyright impact on the creator’s work we love.

So it with interest I read over the holidays that the Australian Federal Court introduced a range of laws that will require Internet Service Providers to block Australians from accessing a range of content on pirated sites.

For those people who are fans and consumers of popular television shows and movies in other countries, it may difficult to understand why people living in Australia are resorting to piracy and are one of the world’s biggest consumers of piracy. 

Australia is way behind on new television content on free-to-air television from North America. I don’t have pay TV or access television streaming services in Australia because I refuse to pay for TV. As a consequence I really don’t know anything about them, in particular their content screening process so I will limit my discussion to free-to-air television.

Australian free-to-air television providers hook consumers in with new content shortly after being show in the United States and then withhold content for rating seasons in the following year or for some reason unknown to me. Of course consumers who are real fans of this content are long gone as they have accessed it through other means including piracy.

In the past it would be unlikely that overseas television content would make the ratings because most of the majority of their consumers would have accessed it elsewhere. When I have checked the ratings only locally made Australian content not shown anywhere else make it and consists of major sporting events and reality television shows.

I have given up watching free-to-air television in Australia because I have become increasingly frustrated at the way new content is delivered that is slow and irregular. I buy my content either on DVD or digitally and way after the original screening. I occasionally watch free-to-air television on demand available from all television providers.

The final straw that broke this camel’s back so to speak was when fans of the Australian national rugby union team the Wallabies were denied access to watching their team on free-to-air TV with rights being given to a pay TV provider at the last minute for their 2016 Spring tour. The final three games of the tour were eventually shown on free-to-air but for me it was too late. I went online to YouTube and found well created extensive highlights of all the games as well as YouTube ad sanctioned full games which I could watch when I wanted. I certainly understand why consumers access piracy and illegal television content via other means. But not all illegal content is available in this method. Australian rugby fans have been forced to access games of their Super Rugby competition through a pay TV provider although recently several games were made available on a free-to-air channel in order to increase rugby’s exposure.

In a research market research report prepared for the Department of Communications and the Arts titled ‘Consumer survey on Online Copyright Infringement 2016’ states the objectives the the research were “to understand the prevalence of online copyright infringement in Australia across four core content types (music, video games, movies and TV programmes); to understand what attitudes drive online copyright infringement behaviours; to determine the role pricing plays in lawful and unlawful access of online content; and to understand how each measure has changed since 2015…

What type of pirated content do consumers access… “Movies consumed digitally remained the most likely content type to have been consumed unlawfully: 37% of consumed digital movies were consumed unlawfully (consistent with 36% in 2015) compared with a quarter of music tracks (23%) and TV programmes (24%), with a smaller proportion of TV programmes consumed unlawfully than in 2015 (32%). Video games had the smallest proportion consumed unlawfully, following a drop from 29% in 2015 to 14% in 2016”.

The many reasons why consumers access pirated content… “As in 2015, the most commonly cited reasons for infringing were because it is free (52%), convenient (44%) and quick (41%). Infringers were less likely than in 2015 to cite convenience (down from 51% to 44%) and trying before they can buy (down from 35% to 24%) as a motivation.”

I found this paragraph in the report about the reasons for accessing piracy interesting as I am within this age group and use this reason to justify my use of piracy…. “In 2016 there was a large and significant increase in those stating “catching up on missed TV” was their reason for consuming content, increasing from just 3% in 2015 (when it was not a pre-coded response option) up to 39% in 2016. This was a particularly important reason for females (44%), 45-54 year olds (44%) and those aged 55+ (48%). The addition of this new response option (and four others) may have contributed to the drop in mentions of many of the response options carried over from 2015”.

The research report asked what would make users of piracy stop accessing illegal content… “A reduction in the cost of lawful content was, as in 2015, the most commonly cited factor that would encourage people to stop infringing (43% of infringers), closely followed by lawful content being available as soon as it is released elsewhere (35%) and lawful content being available (31%). The proportion citing lawful content being available fell significantly from 38% in 2015 to 31% in 2016….

Other common motivating factors to stop unlawful consumption related to lawful services being convenient/flexible (30%) or being better (27%). In both cases, the proportion of infringers selecting this factor increased compared with 2015 (from 26% and 22% respectively)”.
The report found that “YouTube and Foxtel/Presto remained the two best known licenced services, with Netflix overtaking iTunes/Apple to become the third best known licenced service”.

In an article published on news.com.au titled “Federal court hands down decision in site blocking case” posted on the16 December, 2016, the Foxtel chief executive Peter Tonagh said the outcome in the Australian Federal Court was a good outcome. “Piracy does great damage to Australia’s content creating industries and we were delighted that the Government and Parliament recognised this by passing these new legislative provisions last year,” he said. “This judgment is a major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft.

“We are playing our part to reduce the attractiveness of piracy by making content available in a timely manner, at different price points, and on multiple devices and. More broadly, the content creation industries will continue to educate the public on the harm piracy does and how to get access to content in a legitimate manner…”

Pay TV and free-to-air providers in Australia are well aware of their role in reducing piracy by providing content in a timely manner.

For me the laws will not make any difference to me because I very rarely watch something pirated. The television shows and movies I have watched on YouTube are poor recordings on small screens within a large screen, have some kind of light screen block over them and have some of the content missing enough for YouTube to state it is a derivative work and place advertising on it. I watched a pirated copy of Canadian television show that was going to be available through pay TV however, I decided I didn’t like it after watching two episodes. In other words I watched illegal content because it wasn’t available in Australia.

While the introduction of the new laws don’t make any difference to me as I can wait for content to be made legally, I often wonder about those peope who participate in fandoms which require access to the latest content. I also did not read anything about how these laws will impact on consumers including Australians in fandoms and in particular those on social media and those involved in creating fan works. Fandoms attached to television shows attract millions of followers who interact with other fans through social media and at conventions around the world. Australian fans will become increasingly isolated and disgruntled as they are excluded from the television content they love and those who they interact with. But I image Australians will find creative solutions to finding away around this blocks and exclusions as they always do.